


Reactions and Redactions

by EmilliaGryphon



Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Captain America, MCU, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Steve Rogers - Fandom, Stucky - Fandom
Genre: Did Bucky cause Chernobyl?, Emotional Conflict, Emotions, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hydra, I saw the mini series on HBO and couldn't help myself, Love, M/M, Pining, SHIELD, Uncertain Love, but an agent of hydra, i know it doesn't exactly align, i wanted bucky his own snarky self
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:41:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23234893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilliaGryphon/pseuds/EmilliaGryphon
Summary: In the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster Steve "Captain America" Rogers is made to interrogate the Hydra agent they found in the control room during the explosion. There is something familiar about him but Steve can't quite tell what it is.A Happy Birthday Gift for Skarabrae_Stone!!!
Relationships: Captain America/Winter Solider, Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, Stucky
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Reactions and Redactions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Skarabrae_stone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skarabrae_stone/gifts).



> This might be the beginning of a longer fic (?) I loved the HBO mini series and highly recommend it (provided you have a strong stomach). As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to put Steve and Bucky in this situation.
> 
> I wanted to write Bucky as the Winter Solider/Agent of Hydra but also wanted to write Bucky as his snarky self so I've made him more mentally stable than he otherwise would be in this scenario. I probably got some technicalities wrong with the actual disaster itself, those mistakes are mine alone. 
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY SKARABRAE_STONE Thank you for being one of my best friends, my writing partner in crime and fellow fan-girl! Love you and all your writing! 
> 
> Go check out their amazing Stucky fics and follow their blog on Tumblr @captaintoomanybattles. They have inspired me, (an otherwise gotg fan), to write more Stucky!

**S.H.I.E.L.D Underground**

**Headquarters USSR**

**30 KM from Pripyat**

**Monday April 28, 1986**

**11:24PM**

“That’s him?” Steve stole a gland through the one-way glass into the dingy windowless room. The man sitting at the table picked at dirt under his fingernails, disinterested, unalarmed.

“That’s him.”

“And he’s the only survivor?”

Captain Elton looked through the window, scowling.

“There were several survivors, Captain Rogers. He’s the only one who hasn’t started coughing up his own blood, yet.”

Steve’s stomach curled; he’d seen the pictures already. He’d witnessed the burns. Bubbling and purple and bleeding, turning flesh to coarse, pussing leather. He bit the inside of his cheek. Say what you would about the commies, no one deserved this. It wasn’t the fault of the scientists or the workers that their leaders were corrupt. Cutting corners, sacrificing lives for the sake of pride. He looked at the man in the interrogation room once more, the man they’d apprehended only looked around the room bored.

“What do you need me to do?” Steve asked, bracing himself.

“Interrogate him,” Elton’s dark eyes burned. “Find out what he was doing there, why he isn’t dead yet and what, if anything he had to do with the explosion.”

“You think Hydra caused it?”

“You think they didn’t?”

Steve nodded, even SHIELD didn’t have all the answers. The USSR was notoriously abrasive on a good day, never mind when it came to cooperation with American based intelligence agencies.

“Alright then,” Steve grabbed the file from Elton, leafing through it nonchalantly.

“And Rogers?”

“Yes?”

Elton’s brow furrowed, “use any means necessary.”

Steve had been around long enough to know what that meant. _Torture_

As usual, he nodded with curt compliance, gripping the folder tightly as he turned down the hall towards the metal door to the interrogation room. He stepped with gravity, laughing to himself. _It’s been years and I’m still not used to this body. A skinny little kid in the form of an army man. That was good though wasn’t it? Wasn’t that what he’d always wanted?_ Steve expertly thrust the question to the back of his mind, flipping through the file from Elton. It didn’t contain much. The name of the nuclear power plant, “Chernobyl,” the names of the bureaucrats who owned and operated it, a brief history of the plant, and more. Nothing about a Hydra agent sleeper cell. Nothing about the man in the room with the dirty brown hair. They redacted several lines of the report itself. Presumably covering up any details as to who this man was. Steve’s frown deepened, he took a breath, punching the code to the locked door. It released with a harsh _beeep_ and Steve stepped forward.

The man at the table, turned, gray blue bright eyes sizing him up between the long hair that fell down in front of his face. _No glimmer of fear but…fascination_ . A harried hollow look to his face. Steven had seen it enough times that it didn’t faze him. _And yet…. there was something else. Something he couldn’t name. Something that made him…uncomfortable. Unsettled_. Steve Rogers did not like feeling unsettled, though he had been forced to muddle through it. He eyed the man with equal contempt. Why was he of all people, spared the horrific nuclear burns of the explosion? 

“Bet you wish you’d died in the explosion like the rest of them,” Steve began, throwing the folder down on the dented metal table. The man’s gaze did not waver. “They are still assessing the damages. I have to hand it to you; this was quite a feat.” He paused, waiting for some response but the hydra agent said nothing, jaw set. It only provoked greater anger.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Steve demanded, the heat in his chest rising. As they spoke millions of nuclear particles were spreading across the sky, unleashing radiation on the winds at an unprecedented rate. The closest city to the plant-Pripyat was desperately trying to coordinate an evacuation, but according to SHIELD analyst the damage was already done. Steve glowered, trying hard to contain his righteous fury. “We are dealing with something that has never occurred on this planet before,” he leaned towards the agent nearly trembling with rage. “Now you are going to tell me why you were in the control room when they found you and how you killed four SHIELD operatives when you tried to escape. You are going to tell me how an RBMK reactor suffered damages so severe it ruptured a nuclear core and led to the worst disaster in human history.”

“Wasn’t me,” the Hydra agent mumbled, he glanced at the folder still unopened. “Whatever’s in that folder is a lie.”

“Hydra has been subsidizing Soviet nuclear programs for years.”

The man only shrugged, looking at him with indifference. Steve bit his lip, looking down at the man in frustrated fury.

“That is true, but my part in it is a lie.”

“Then what’s the truth?”

The man smirked, the hair on Steve’s neck rising. That smile, something about it was familiar. The Hydra agent raised his good hand, running it over his head pulling his hair back from his face in one motion. Steve looked away, his stomach turning though this time it was not out of rage.

The man smiled broadly, having far too much fun.

“In order to tell you that we’re going to have to take a little field trip.”

**Chernobyl Exclusion Zone**

**Tuesday April 29, 1986**

**10:04PM**

“You’ve got to be kidding me Rogers,” Even under his mask, Steve could see Captain Elton’s eyes glaring daggers at the Hydra agent who was chained to the side of the van. Steve sat across from him, watching keenly. He kept his eyes on the prisoner if only to avoid the anxiety mounting within his stomach. They’d been briefed on the ever evolving situation at the plant, officials had been desperately trying to put out the fires for days, attempting to contain the spread of radioactive particles, going so far as to use helicopters to drop sand on top of the melted reactor; according to SHIELD these efforts proved futile resulting only in more casualties and no official word from USSR intelligence. 

The van halted at the checkpoint, Steve strained to see through the barred windows. His own cumbersome gloves itched as he pressed them against the window. Gray sky, rain...men with masks obscuring their faces, still, he noticed; their hands remained bare, waving them through. 

“I can’t believe they authorized this,” Elton shook his head. “We’re going to get poisoned because of this lunatic.” 

Steve hardly heard him. Focusing instead on the Hydra agent who had kept uncommonly quiet. His gaze off and far away. _Sad._ The same hollow look Steve had seen in the men during the war. His insides quivered with that pang of uncertainty. Something propelled him to comfort the man, to reach out and touch the shackles binding his wrists. But no, he couldn’t. Not here. And where was this emotion coming from? He had no reason to feel anything but contempt towards this terrorist agent. Even if he hadn’t been the cause of this disaster. He was still an enemy. 

The van screeched to a halt. 

“We’re here,” the prisoner grinned mischievous. 

Steve braced himself, pulling down the mask he was required to wear and stepping into what looked like a warzone. Even through the protective barrier the iron scent of burning metal and nauseating phosphorus threatened to make him gag. 

“This is him?”

A pale, flustered looking man gestured to the Hydra agent. 

“The one you apprehended in the control room?” 

“Yes,” Steve breathed. 

Captain Elton proceeded forward to Steve’s gratitude, exchanging formalities with the local officers. 

“You said you’d tell me the truth,” Steve whispered, irritated. 

“You’ll get it. Find a way to get us to the reactor.” 

“The reactor? There is no reactor. It’s melted. The radiation is dangerously high here, never mind inside the building!” _I’ve already put Elton and the rest in danger by bringing them this far._

He spared no thought for himself of course. But if this man was indeed lying to get the better of them and save himself, it would be at the expense of everyone else. 

Steve balked, the man only smiled with that familiar brass confidence. Steve’s pulse quickened. 

“Fine,” he grabbed the man roughly by the arm. Turning towards the wreckage of the reactor. They slipped past the guards with practiced confidence. 

Steve glanced at the radiation detector. Its dial twitched and beeped with increasing alarm as they neared the building.

“We’ll have to be quick,” the hydra agent instructed, easily breaking Steve’s hold and stepping through the torn hole in the wall of the building. “You might have super serum but I don’t and these government issued smocks and masks don’t offer much protection.”

“These are SHIELD issue…”

“Psshh, SHIELD.” 

Steve didn’t have to see the man’s face to know he was rolling his eyes. _Was this a game to him?_ He pocketed the device and followed the on-armed man into the maw of the wreck. 

“I didn’t cause the explosion,” the one-armed man tiptoed through the debris, the dim flashlight he had apparently stolen off one of the officers not doing much good against the all consuming dark. “I was trying to stop it. This way,” Steve followed him instinctually, wracking his mind as to why he’d trust this man so quickly? So completely? He halted, 

“Seems like we have to climb,” the stairs had evidently melted. Descending downward into more nothingness, streams gloppy metal mushing together, bending at impossible angles. A head of him, the Hydra agent stumbled, catching himself against the wall. Steve rushed forward, instantly grabbing the man’s shoulders. 

“You alright?” 

He turned his head, those _gray eyes….soft..._ they held each other’s gaze for a moment. Both wandering. 

“Fine,” the prisoner breathed, still looking at Steve. He let go quickly. “We’re almost there.” He shoved passed him down into the reactor chamber. 

“You were trying to stop the explosion?” Steve forced his mind back to the task at hand. “Which means you knew it was going to happen.” 

The Hydra agent nodded, his back still turned while they navigated the dark corridor. 

“Like you said, Hydra had been subsidizing and overseeing USSR nuclear projects for years. And not just the USSR, we got reactors all over the world. Chernobyl was a…” 

He stopped, Steve’s frown deepened, storming over to the man and the Hydra agent grabbed his shoulder, wrenching him backward. 

Before them,....below them, lay the smoking remnants of the RBMK reactor. The detector in Steve’s suit screamed in warning with radiation off the charts. He trembled in his suit. Sweat from the noxious heat threatening to suffocate him. Steve squinted through his mask, trying to make out what had once been the enormous container, now blown to pieces beyond recognition. _Looming over them like the burning cathedrals in Poland,_ he thought, spinning.

“Reactor...f...four was...was a test for Hydra,” the man explained, coughing. “The safety drill they were running….it was supposed to ensure that the reactor could be cooled before anything c...catastrophic could happen.” 

“We do similar tests in the U.S.” Steve reasoned. The man beside him shook his head. 

“It wasn't a cooling reactor. It wasn’t doing anything. Hydra built it so that the cooling rods would not penetrate back into the core once they were extracted. They b...built it to explode during the very safety test they knew the department of energy would mandate.” 

Steve wavered where he stood, the heat pressing against him inside the suite. Beside him he could feel the Hydra agent…. _no, he must have a name._

The man next to him coughed, doubling over. 

“Hey!” He hunkered down, putting his arms around the man, “you okay?” The Hydra man nodded, though his entire body trembled. 

“I was trying to manually override the system, reverse what had been done. That’s w...why I was in the control room...but I was too late. They had already started the...the drill.”

Steve pat the man on the back, holding him tightly, almost protectively. 

“Let’s get you out of here.” He started to stand, pulling the Hydra agent up with him but the man did not budge. 

“You go. I’ll meet you out there.”

Steve had known plenty of liars in this time, this man no different. He tried again to pry the man upward.

“C’mon. We’ll talk with Elton, I’m sure this can be explained. There will be a trail of course and…”

“You should keep a closer eye on your Captains, Captain. I overheard Elton. I’ll be put to death by SHIELD or traded back to Hydra in exchange for information.”

_That’s impossible, SHIELD wouldn’t trade with Hydra for anything...they didn’t deal in lives. Did they?_

“G...go!” The Hydra agent shoved him. On unsteady feet Steve fell forward, into the crumbling stone and iron. “I’d rather get melted alive in here then go back to Hydra. 

“I won’t let that happen,” Steve righted himself, grabbing the man under his arms and hauling him upward, dragging him away from the reactor. “There you go, nice and easy,” Steve gently lowered the man to the ground, now out in one of the halls. No less dark, no less radiation, but far enough from the reactor that they were no longer burning. The Hydra agent slumped, trying to contain his cough. 

“Why...why’re you doing this for me?”

How Steve wished he could take their masks off. He wanted to see the man’s face. Wanted to see those eyes. Instead he grabbed the man’s shoulders, looking through the tinted mask. Imagining the face on the other side. 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “You just….you remind me of someone.” 

“Wh...who?”

Steve sighed,

“....Someone I loved.” 

Amid the chaos, the burning, the uncertainty. The scope and scale of this mess, this Hydra agent had tried to stop it. There was only one other person Steve knew who would be that stupid, that heroic, that precocious… _.Buc…_

“Captain Rogers!”

_Damnit_

Steve and the one armed man scanned the corridor, the inadequate flashlight scarcely illuminating tall, gas masked figures approaching through the smog. Steve turned back to the man, removing his mask. 

“Whatever happens,” he whispered frantically. “I….I’ll see you get out of this. I’m with you….”

The Hydra agent removed his own mask with his remaining hand. Brown hair slick with sweat fell in front of his face, but those eyes...stared up at him in shock. His mouth fell agape. Steve’s heart clenched with longing, with the impossibility of it. The man’s hand reached out, grasping his own tightly and squeezed.

“...till the end of.....the line.” 

**The End**


End file.
